Lewis B. Smedes Quotes

You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself.

It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.

Forgiving is, first of all, a way of helping yourself to get free of the unfair pain somebody caused you.

Waiting is the hardest work of hope.

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory.

God invented forgiving as a remedy for a past that not even he could change and not even he could forget. His way of forgiving is the model for our forgiving.

The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart.

To miss out on joy is to miss out on the reason for your existence.

...Forgiving is not having to understand. Understanding may come later, in fragments, an insight here and a glimpse there, after forgiving.

Kindness is the power that moves us to support and heal someone who offers nothing in return.

I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living.

The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name.

The longer we hate, the harder it is to heal us.

Any moment that opens us up to the reality that life is good is a parable of the supreme end for which we were made.

We forgive freely or we do not really forgive at all.

A wise judge may let mercy temper justice but may not let mercy undo it.

Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long... If we wait too long to forgive, our rage settles in and claims squatter's rights to our souls.

I have discovered that most people who tell me that they cannot forgive a person who wronged them are handicapped by a mistaken understanding of what forgiving is.

Gandhi was right: if we all live by 'an eye for an eye' the whole world will be blind. The only way out is forgiveness.

Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness.

We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.

My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed - and each of the five has been me.

Self control is about being in charge of the direction our lives are taking. Now for the paradox: We get control of our lives, ultimately, not by will power but by surrender.

When I feel the joy of receiving a gift my heart nudges me to join creation's ballet, the airy dance of giving and receiving, and getting and giving again.

The secret of grace is that it can be all right at the center even when it is all wrong on the edges.

The blood of Christ covers all of our sins, but each of us must do personal business with God in order to experience his forgiveness.

Our society is pluralistic. We who accept the privilege of membership in that society agree to respect the people's right to live by their own religious precepts.